Four Things I Already Love About the Galaxy Watch 8
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 starts shipping today, and I just received the Watch 8 Classic to begin reviewing. We’ll have to wait a bit for a full report, but here’s what I like (and what I’m questioning) so far.
I’m new to the Galaxy Watch world, but I’ve already reviewed Pixel and Apple watches, not to mention a slew of Garmin and other fitness watches . Here are my first impressions, including what I like and what I’m looking forward to testing in the coming days.
Yeah, the scrolling frame is pretty funny.
As promised, the Watch 8 Classic features a rotating bezel that rotates as you scroll across the screen. On the main watch face, it reveals notifications or tiles that you would otherwise have to swipe sideways to see.
The rotating bezel is a joy to turn, with soft, gentle clicks as it rotates smoothly. I showed it to my teenage son, who agreed it was nice, but then laughed when I said, “That’s the same as swiping your finger like this.”
The bezel doesn’t really add anything to your experience of using the watch. I assume it’s because all Watch 8 models have the same OS, but only the Classic has a rotating bezel. Still, it feels like a waste of effort. On watches with buttons and a crown, like the Coros or Suunto running watches, a scroll wheel makes it easy to scroll without taking your fingers off the buttons on the right. On the Galaxy, scrolling with the bezel is less convenient than simply swiping the screen. The watch even has a crown-shaped button on the side that I kept trying to scroll. It’s surrounded by ridges that prevent you from wrapping your thumb and forefinger around it, which I imagine may be an attempt to control that temptation.
I also found that the scrolling direction seemed to be backwards. Scrolling left (counterclockwise) is equivalent to swiping right. At least vertical scrolling makes more sense: clockwise you scroll down the page.
The dynamics of running actually make sense.
These days, a lot of watches measure the dynamics of your run: how much time your foot spends on the ground, how much you bounce during your stride, etc. ( Are they doing this accurately? I’m not sure, but that’s another question.) Pixel watches and many Garmin watches do this automatically.
The Galaxy Watch 8 is the first watch I’ve seen that displays this data so clearly that it’s immediately obvious what the hell it means. Take a look at the result I got in the report after a morning trail run:
There was even a screen on the run that showed the symmetry of my stride in real time. (That seemed like a good thing.) I wish they called it “symmetry” instead of “asymmetry.” I wonder how much these numbers change when I go for a fast run on a flat road.
Heart rate zones are transparent and adapt to you.
Most devices display your heart rate zones without telling you exactly how they’re calculated. And worse, most devices calculate the zones using a formula based on age, which doesn’t work for many people .
When I first saw my zones on the Watch 8, there was a little note at the top saying they were based on my maximum heart rate, and there was also a note that listed my estimated maximum heart rate.
After my morning run, I got a notification that my max heart rate had increased because the watch had recorded a higher heart rate during my run. Of course, this isn’t my actual max, since I wasn’t running at my limit, but it was nice to see the watch update its zones and let me know.
The dials are pretty cool.
I love aesthetics, so of course the first thing I did was check out the watch face gallery. There were a lot of good ones, including some analog ones with a celestial theme. I prefer digital, so I chose a watch with a clear view of the time and enough space for additional functions.
But the best part is that after my run, I got a notification asking if I wanted to try a running-focused watch face. I tapped “Edit” and was instantly presented with a watch face similar to the one I’d chosen, but with my VO2max, the length of my last run, and a button I could tap to start my run.
Of course, I tried the antioxidant index.
I think it’s clever, but I really don’t know how accurate it is. To find out how healthy your diet is (in terms of vegetables and antioxidants), take off your watch, turn it away from you, and place your thumb on the pulse sensor. You can follow the test, which only takes a few seconds, on your phone.
The watch essentially tracks the orange hue of your skin. The more orange it is, the more beta-carotene you’ve likely eaten recently. The more beta-carotene (which is an antioxidant), the more vegetables you’ve likely eaten. It’s kind of a logical coincidence. The Verge’s Victoria Song tricked this sensor with Cheez-It chips .
The watch says my antioxidant index is “very low.” So the watch thinks I should eat more carrots.
What I expect from working on my review
I can’t wait to try the running coach. I’ll need to run for 12 minutes (essentially the Cooper test) for the app to assess my fitness level and start prescribing workouts.
I’m also looking forward to trying out the treadmill feature. I’ve always been annoyed that running watches like Garmin can’t pull data from treadmills to determine how fast you’re running. The Apple Watch has GymKit, which can do this, but it only works with the Apple Workout app. I know my gym’s treadmills sync with my Samsung Galaxy watch, so I’m looking forward to seeing if Samsung can beat Apple to the punch in making this data available to more apps.
I’m also curious (and skeptical) about some of the other metrics, like the Vascular Load Index announced by Samsung . The weird thing about the wearables market is that companies can tout new health metrics that reviewers can’t easily verify. I can tell whether a watch measures heart rate the same way a chest strap does, and with some effort, I can tell whether it estimates my VO2max the same way a lab test does . But what’s my antioxidant index, really ? That’s something you and I might have to give up on.